


I Like Us Better (When We're Like This)

by meependa (Hawkbringer)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Break Up Talk, F/M, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Present Tense, Submissive Spock, Understanding Uhura, but can totally be taken as just a gen break-up scene, fluff not angst, no pyrotechnics necessary, they're adults they can act like it sometimes, written by a k/s shipper so its also pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/meependa
Summary: Nyota lifts her head from the mindless work she was doing on her PADD, a realization hitting her out of the blue. She and Spock haven't done anything particularly romantic for weeks. And she hadn't noticed. Because it didn't feel like anything was missing.





	I Like Us Better (When We're Like This)

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the then-ubiquitous 'how does Uhura break up with Spock' question that all K/S shippers had to wrap their headcanons around after the first JJ movie. I have always had a soft spot for aggressively-intelligent females in media (originating in elementary school with Hermione from HP) so I tried my best to give her a sympathetic break-up scene, not the 'hysterical chaos' route I had seen too much of at the time. (Latter half originally written summer 2012, before Into Darkness.)

No one who even knew of her in passing would ever call Nyota Uhura stupid. Certainly not to her face. Anyone who knew anything about her would agree, when she decides she wants to know something, she'll go all out to get as much information as she can about the subject. So when she learned she was going to have a linguistics professor who was actually _from Vulcan_ and known around campus for being even more uptight than most Vulcans, she decided this was one tough nut she was going to crack. She excelled in his course, earned his personal commendation, and, she thought, his friendship. 

She absorbed more about Vulcan culture, its language, its social customs, than she ever expected to, motivation never flagging in this endeavor, the way it did in other things, as though the very universe itself supported her quest. Her study of Vulcan was endlessly rewarding, and, she thought, adequate preparation for fostering a comfortable environment for a Vulcan-born man to lower his shields and engage in emotional intimacy. So many of their professional discussions had danced tantalizingly close to the edge of a real, deep connection, and that was what she wanted. So that was what she sought.

No one who even knew of him in passing would ever call Spock cha'Sarek of Vulcan a biased man. He worked _hard_ to maintain that image for himself, as well. So it was with no small amount of internal tension that he recognized during meditation one night, after his first semester teaching at Starfleet Academy commenced without Nyota Uhura present in one of his classes, that he _was_ biased. He _did_ favor her. He even, missed her. This he could not deny. But he could still avoid the _appearance_ of favoritism, and struggled to maintain their professional relationship without tipping any scales too far in her favor. He did, at least once, fail to maintain professional courtesy in an attempt to avoid appearing biased in her favor. But she forgave him. Eventually. He thinks. Once he revised the roster in her favor. Under duress. (Her glare is a fearsome weapon that she wields with an assassin's bone-chilling grace, he will admit to absolutely no one out loud.)

After Ensign Kirk's disastrous but effective stint commanding the USS Enterprise, after losing his planet, his mother, his equanimity, he sought out _Lieutenant_ Uhura (as he refers to her with a smidgen of pride in his voice) for what she had always been able to provide him with - mental calm. Shelter. A safe environment free of external pressures. When she suggested, if not demanded, a romantic and sexual component to their closeness, he was not in a controlled enough state to adequately weigh the benefits and risks, and agreed somewhat impulsively. He follows her lead in this, because she is the more experienced partner, and has extremely clear short-term and long-term goals. 

As the weeks stretch on with her frequent company, he feels less and less tension within himself regarding their hours spent together and alone. He does not identify the cause before she does. He believes it to stem from her ever-growing competency at her assigned Bridge post, such that he may come to rely on her in times of crisis and look at her as an equal in rank. 

She lifts her head from her PADD one day when they are together and alone in Spock's quarters again, and declares to the silent room exactly how many Standard days have passed since they last engaged in romantic relations. Spock's hands freeze in his own PADD and he struggles to maintain a perfectly even grip on the surface as several emotional reactions to her statement assault his mind all at once. He carefully sets the object aside and looks up. He was, at least, successful in keeping his turmoil from being visible on his face because Nyota does not notice anything amiss in his expression. Instead, she catches his gaze and earnestly smiles. "We're better like this."

Spock blinks several times and does not notice the increasing pressure on his teeth until he has to separate his lips to ask for clarification. "Better than when we were trying to make it work in the bedroom," she adds. Spock blinks several times, taking in her excited expression, eyes sparkling with the joy of discovery he has seen in them so many times as they poured over some academic journal or experiment's results. He finds it difficult to synthesize these disparate elements, and turns his head away, still blinking purposefully to remind himself of his ability to control his autonomic nervous system. In further service to this end, he inhales slowly and concentrates on the sensation of his lungs filling, his heartbeat slowing appreciably. 

Before he can breathe out, Nyota, who has cast her own gaze off towards the far wall with a small smile on her lips, expresses yet another impossible truth. "I like it." 

Spock exhales and opens his eyes again. His emotions now calmed, his mind back under his control, he is able to ask, "You like... what?" Not that he _hadn't_ been following their previous conversation, but still.

"I like this, as we are now. It fits us better." Then she turns to him, looks him in the eye and there's wonder and a little sadness (so very like his mother's eyes, he thinks with a pang) as she says, "Together. Our relationship, I mean. We function better as more... platonic friends, than as physical lovers." She lifts one eyebrow, slipping into a more formal cadence as a safety net as she asks him, "Would you be amenable to this change in our relationship status?" 

He tilts his head and almost smiles at her. So well-spoken. Such a credit to her field, to the Enterprise. She is such a lovely woman... beloved, but not a lover. Yes; he can, as the saying goes, live with that. 

He lets one corner of his mouth rise and his eyes close partially, like a cat's, in that way that lets her know he is comfortable, not needing to be alert, that her presence is a bulwark, as he tilts his head and replies, "I believe I could, as the saying goes, live with that." The light tone with which the words are delivered does much to soften what might otherwise have been a cutting turn of phrase, and the desired response is produced when the woman laughs. 

She stands fluidly and crosses the room to hold his elbows and press a kiss to his forehead. 

"Okay," she says when she pulls away. He blinks up at her, eyes still softly hooded, and it is not an expression of lust or wanting on his face. It is contentment. He is not expecting a kiss to the lips, she realizes with a jolt. He is content with just this. 

_And now I must be,_ she realizes anew. _I won't, I can't force him to demonstrate that much affection to me, if he doesn't feel it._ She swallows down the loss, but it is small, balanced against what she got to keep, and it goes down easily. This time, there aren't even any tears to blink back. She squeezes his elbows and forearms tight for a moment as she brushes her hands down his arms and away. 

Not waiting the extra beat that would make the silence awkward, she steps back to her own chair and PADD and goes back to work. They part for bed as per their usual, she needing (and taking) more sleep than he, and the good night feels more formal, more official, more final, than it has before. 

She accepts this, seeing nothing new in his face, hearing nothing new in his tone, or even her own, except a slight hint of wistfulness, and paces the halls to her quarters berating herself for only now having opened her eyes. She listens so well, but sometimes she does not _see_.

**Author's Note:**

> ngl that last line was something I was real proud of myself for thinking up at the time. I feel like it encapsulated her whole character for me. YMMV of course.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as hawkbringerandstubby.


End file.
